What happens to everything we throw away?

Plastics are a messy problem highlighted by the dichotomy of their pan-sector necessity and their value at end of life. This talk will explore our complex plastic environment and the interdependency on our ambitions to lower our carbon footprint and increase our expected lifespan. We highlight our work on circular and spiral economies for plastics in packaging, cars, hospitals and wallets. Our interdisciplinary team recovers value at end-of-life by unmaking complexity: Reusing, repairing, and recycling the objects, components, materials, or molecules essential for our sustainable future.

In this talk, Dr Roberts explains how a failed experiment led him down a path that involved designing habitats on the Moon and Mars through various unorthodox approaches, before further setbacks resulted in a discovery (and new start-up company) that could decarbonise the ceramic tiles industry. Here, Dr Roberts gives a lesson on how constraints can promote innovation and resourcefulness, and how failure and adversity can encourage resilience and new ways of thinking.

Plastics have widespread societal benefits, ranging from improving quality of life to reducing energy consumption, all for a relatively low lifespan cost compared with competing materials. An increasing awareness of environmental and human health concerns is posed by them, especially once discarded. In recent years, efforts have been made to shift from a linear to circular economy, wherein manufactured plastic goods are kept in the loop. One such potential solution is through enhanced recycling technologies that leverage microorganisms, but can tiny life really help solve big plastic problem?